Our drive got off to a rocky start today as we were pulled over by a police officer who insisted that we had committed an infringement by not driving in the curb side lane of a multi lane road. We spent perhaps 20 minutes debating this with him - he in Spanish and we in English insisting that we understood no Spanish. Eventually we (should I say Nina) proved more dogged and he gave up and waved us on.
The country side changed as we climbed into the hills approaching the Honduran border. Low land jungle gave was to more open vegetation and pine trees appeared. With this the humidity and temperature dropped a little. The border crossing (described below) took a bit over an hour and was not particularly taxing and by about 2:30 we were on our way.
The two young men that helped us enter Honduras asked us for a ride to the nearby town of Danli.
Our camping spot for the night was one of the gas stations in Danli. We had heard about this from other travelers. The station had a large very uneven parking lot for trucks and buses. When we pulled in the guard vigilante(in Spanish) instructed us to park on a concrete area next to a series of large water troughs. These troughs were being used as a water source for washing vehicles. During the course of the afternoon perhaps a dozen taxis dropped by and the drivers gave them their end-of-day wash. A bit later we understood why the guard wanted us in a particular place. Old US Blue Bird school buses started arriving and parking for the night. By the time it was dark we were surrounded by 5 or 6 of these old US rejects. We noted with interest that one used to belong to the Indianapolis school district.
As we discovered next morning the buses got their daily wash at 5:30am before the day started.
Camping
The Esso gas station on the outskirts of Danli has a large truck parking lot with an armed security guard. Toilets are about the only facility but it was a comfortable night.
Nicuragua-Honduras Border at Los Manos
The approach to this border crossing is up hill to a crest. At the top of the climb is a rope/chain across the road. An official lowered the rope and we drove forward 10 yards to an office where the vehicle exit processing was performed. We paid a helper to facilitate this (though it probably was not necessary). A bit farther along there was an office on the right that had immigration windows for both Nicaragua and Honduras. The exit processing from Nicaragua involved a nominal fee ($3 each). The Honduras window was closed for lunch so we proceeded to the next chain/rope which was the entrance to the Honduran processing area.
For the Honduras side we had two helpers. There was an office building on the right. At the left hand end of this waws an office where vehicle processing was done, in the middle an immigration window and at the right hand end was a bank where vehicle entry fees were paid. The vehicle entry was lengthy simply because the lady seemed to have to fill out a mountain of forms. At a couple of points one of the helpers had to run off and get photo copies of various documents (a copy of the vehicle stamp page in the owners passport and a copy of the permission form). We never did seem to have to pay for the copying.
Immigration processing involved a small fee ($3 each) paid directly to the officer.
The helpers did not set a price and would probably have helped even if we did not eventually pay them.
